I confess - I was wrong. In at least two previous editorial columns (here and here), I predicted that there would be some sort of disturbance to the status quo as a result of the 'millennium bug'. But now, as I force open the radiation-proof door to the bomb shelter that's been my home for the last month*, kicking aside the detritus of empty cans of delicious 'all day breakfast' that have provided food and, in a roundabout way, warmth, I have to conclude that perhaps I made a mistake.

To be a little more than fair, I predicted that there would be problems relating to people's reaction to the idea of the bug, rather than because of the bug itself. But even that didn't happen. We've seen a couple of errors on systems here which could be attributed to the divide-by-zero errors caused by short date formats, but that's been little more annoying than the usual daily Windows crashes that plague most users. The nearest we've had to a disastrous millennium bug experience has been an unpleasant dose of the 'flu.

Who'd have thought it, eh? Who'd have thought that either (a) programmers were so efficient and organised that they tracked down all instances of short date codes and corrected them in time, or (b) short date codes don't actually matter very much at all in the real world. Either way, it didn't happen, I confess that I got it wrong and, like Private Eye, I promise not to do it again.

Of course, this was only a rehearsal for the real problem-causing bug. That happens in 2036, when the UNIX clock runs out of digits and all the world's computers (Windows will then, of course, be a distant memory to Bill Gates, CEO of Linux Global Corp.) will crash and burn. That's just 36 years away - better start stockpiling food now!